Politics|Trump Administration Faces Hurricane Harvey, Its First Major Natural Disaster

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Trump Administration Faces Hurricane Harvey, Its First Major Natural Disaster

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Brock Long, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been well received by emergency managers around the country, who say he is battle-tested.CreditCreditStephan Savoia/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Facing what could be the most powerful storm to slam into the United States in more than a decade, President Trump and the team he has put in place at the Federal Emergency Management Agency were bracing on Friday for one of the most important tests of his presidency.

The stakes could be exceedingly high. Few events test the effectiveness of an administration — or bear as many political risks — like a major natural disaster.

The storm, Hurricane Harvey, made landfall near Corpus Christi, Tex., as a Category 4 hurricane late Friday. It is predicted to pummel the South Texas coast with winds exceeding 110 miles an hour and up to three feet of rain. After making landfall, forecasters predicted, the storm would make a turn back up the coast toward Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city and home to the oil and gas industry.

Mr. Trump used the power of his preferred megaphone, his Twitter account, to signal to his more than 36 million followers on Friday that he was closely watching the storm, as members of his administration sought to project that they were on top of the looming crisis.

Mr. Trump’s homeland security adviser, Thomas P. Bossert, told reporters on Friday that the president has been in close touch with the governors of Texas and Louisiana, the two states most likely to be affected. Late Friday night, Mr. Trump signed a federal disaster declaration to support the local response in Texas, which the president said in a tweet “unleashes the full force of government help!”

“This could remain a dangerous storm for several days,” Mr. Bossert said as he outlined the federal government’s preparations, which have included close monitoring of the oil and gas production centered along costal Texas.

He later added: “Now is not the time to lose faith in your government institutions.”

Mr. Trump received a briefing on the preparations Friday morning from top homeland security officials, including Mr. Bossert; his chief of staff, John F. Kelly; the acting homeland security secretary, Elaine Duke; and the FEMA administrator, Brock Long.

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Forecasters say the Category 4 storm could be the strongest to hit the United States in 12 years.CreditCreditCourtney Sacco/Corpus Christi Caller-Times, via Associated Press

Mr. Long, a former director of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, is leading the federal response effort. His selection has been well received by emergency managers around the country, who say Mr. Long is battle-tested and well-connected with the states’ emergency teams. The Senate confirmed his appointment in June with a 95 to 4 vote.

Mr. Long’s Obama-era predecessor, W. Craig Fugate, declined on Friday to expound on the agency’s preparations, but he had good words to say about the administrator.

“Brock can speak for himself,” he wrote in an email. “But he knows hurricanes.”

Mr. Long said on Friday that the agency stood ready to respond and was working closely with Texas and Louisiana. It had established an incident support base at Randolph Air Force Base Auxiliary Airport near Seguin, Tex., roughly 125 miles inland from where the storm was expected to make landfall. Personnel there were stockpiling 96,000 liters of water and 306,000 meals, as well as supplies like blankets and tarps for affected communities.

The agency also placed teams to assist in the response at emergency posts in Austin and in Baton Rouge, La.

FEMA was being assisted by the Coast Guard, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In a joint statement on Friday, I.C.E. and C.B.P. said they would continue to operate in the affected area but that they would not conduct “routine noncriminal immigration enforcement operations” at evacuation sites or assistance centers.

The preparedness measures and others quietly being taken across the Gulf Coast are the legacy of Hurricane Katrina-related overhauls to the emergency management agency that focused on increasing preparedness in hopes of avoiding another flawed disaster response like the one after that storm.

Indeed, for a sense of the stakes, Mr. Trump need look no further than President George W. Bush’s response to Katrina, which pummeled New Orleans in August 2005, crippling the city and leaving well over 1,500 people dead. The response of Mr. Bush’s FEMA administrator, Michael D. Brown, and the perception the president had incorrectly assessed the storm’s impact, are widely thought to have undermined the rest of his presidency.

Mr. Bush’s assertion at a news conference, even as the agency was mismanaging its response, that Mr. Brown was doing a “heck of a job,” became a national punch line. Mr. Brown resigned a few days later.

Paul M. Rosen, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama, said the agency that rebuilt itself in the wake of the crisis continues to be guided by the lessons of Katrina.

“I think post-Katrina, from a preparation standpoint, one of the lessons was prepare, prepare, prepare — and when you are done preparing, prepare a little more,” Mr. Rosen said. “There is now a mind-set to get ready for the worst.”

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of landlocked Iowa, sharply warned the president that he would do well to study Katrina, lest he feel the consequences.

Mr. Bossert said that the storm was indeed on the minds of federal and state officials, though he said he was hesitant to make direct comparisons between the two hurricanes before Harvey moved ashore.

“What we have done is gotten a lot better as a government,” Mr. Bossert said. Congress has passed “laws to give us the flexibility we need to employ, not just deploy, resources in the case of an event.”

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“This could remain a dangerous storm for several days,” said Thomas P. Bossert, President Trump’s homeland security adviser, on Friday.CreditTom Brenner/The New York Times

Mr. Bossert and the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, suggested Mr. Trump would remain engaged with the storm this weekend from Camp David in Maryland, where he traveled Friday afternoon.

Mr. Bossert said he expected Mr. Trump would directly address the nation when he felt it was appropriate, and Ms. Sanders said that the president would be looking to make plans to visit the affected area as early next week.

Officials also continued to played down concerns that vacancies at other top government posts, including the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, would hinder the government’s response. Ms. Sanders said on Thursday that Mr. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who was the department’s secretary before becoming chief of staff, would be “sitting next to the president throughout this process.”

But Mr. Kelly’s old post is not the only relevant position without a permanent occupant. Two deputy director nominees at FEMA still await confirmation. Mr. Trump has not yet nominated someone to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center. And the center itself is in the midst of a director search, after its last director, Rick Knabb, left in May to become an on-air expert at the Weather Channel.

The administration’s proposed budget cuts to FEMA and NOAA were likewise attracting renewed attention on Friday, as the agencies dominated the news.

The administration has recommended slashing FEMA programs and grants that help cities and states prepare for natural disasters to the tune of $667 million. That includes cuts to the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program, which provides funding states and cities to better withstand the impact of hurricanes and coastal storms.

At NOAA, recommendations included a 16 percent cut to the overall budget and a 32 percent cut to the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, the agency’s main ocean, weather and climate research office.